I see this thread has been "refreshed" again, and there are a couple of things I can usefully add; with regard to the myriad interpretations and facets and subtleties, isn't it great that Poetry (unlike legal, or technical, prose) doesn't have to have one, certain, changeless meaning? It's not a case of "either...or", but of "both...and" and indeed "and...and...and". Secondly, for all that the long phrases and enjambments make this a very difficult song to sing well, or properly(taking account of sense, structure, rhythm and rhymes), there can be no doubt that PK himself intended it as a Song, not a poem which happens to fit "Fainne g. an L." and has "Dawning of the Day" phrase included; there was a BBC documentary the other night, "Folk Hibernia", which included a short film clip of the man himself singing the first few lines of "Raglan Road" to the familiar air. Finally, John McC also sang a translation (I think a bit different from that given by Big Tim above, in August of 2004) in a film of 1929, "Wings of the Morning"; the film's about a racehorse of that name, Henry Fonda's the male lead, and the Count has a sort of cameo part, as himself, singing three songs (Moore's "Endearing Young Charms", "Killarney" by Balfe and Falconer as well as "The D of the Day"). As far as I recall, the first line goes, "One morning early, as I roved out by the margin of Lough Leane..."